All posts tagged LED ZEPPELIN

According to Rolling Stone.com, LED ZEPPELIN have previewed their upcoming reissues with a teaser of a previously unreleased version of Led Zeppelin IV’s lead track, “Black Dog.” It will appear on deluxe editions of the release. Billed as the basic track with guitar overdubs, the song remains mostly the same, save for some noticeably different vocal harmonies. When the crushing blues number arrives at the “oh-oh-oh” part after the verses, Robert Plant’s voice takes some new routes, ticking upward on a few of the overdubs. Check out the teaser below:

With the reissues of Led Zeppelin, II and IIIhaving been runaway successes earlier this year, the group is releasing newly remastered editions of 1971’s IV and 1973’s Houses of the Holy on October 28th. Guitarist and producer Jimmy Page oversaw the production of each new edition. As with the prior reissues, both will be available in a variety of configurations including standard editions, deluxe editions, each with an album’s worth of alternate versions, working mixes and other rarities, as well as super deluxe box sets that contain CDs, vinyl, a download card and an 80-page, hardcover book.

Since the June release of the first round of reissues, Plant has reinforced his stance that he had no interest in performing with his fellow Led Zeppelin bandmates in the foreseeable future, saying that their 2007 one-off concert at London’s O2 was good enough. “A tour would have been an absolute menagerie of vested interests and the very essence of everything that’s shitty about big-time stadium rock,” he told Rolling Stone. “We were surrounded by a circus of people that would have had our souls on the fire. I’m not part of a jukebox!” That comment eventually prompted Page to say that he was “fed up” with Plant’s comments about Led Zeppelin.

Now, Plant, who is promoting his solo album, Lullaby…and the Ceaseless Roar, due out September 9th, has replied in the press again, urging Page to make some new music of his own. “He should get on and do something,” the singer told The Telegraph. “He’s a superb talent. That’s the sad thing for Jimmy, he knows that I’m his guy, I’m his pal, but the warmth that he needs to actually enjoy the world, it’s all there. Come on and give it to us.”

Robert Plant has released a second short film about the themes of his latest album Lullaby And… The Ceaseless Roar, reports Classic Rock. View the video plus its predecessor, both entitled Returning To The Borders, below.

The LED ZEPPELIN icon recently described the record as “celebratory, gritty, African, trance meets Zep.”

Lullaby And… The Ceaseless Roar, Plant’s 10th solo album, will be released on September 8.

Classicrockmagazine.com have reported that LED ZEPPELIN are to be sued by SPIRIT bassist Mark Andes over iconic track Stairway To Heaven’s similarity to a piece released by his band three years earlier.

They launched a composition called Taurus in 1968, and soon afterwards Led Zep supported them on their first-ever US tour. ‘Stairway’ was released in 1971 on Led Zeppelin IV – but members of Spirit always claimed the opening acoustic guitar phrase was lifted from Taurus.

Late guitarist Randy California, who died in 1997, once commented: “I’d say it was a rip-off. The guys made millions of bucks on it and never said, ‘Thank you’ – never said, ‘Can we pay you some money?’ It’s a sore point with me.”

Now Andes is gearing up to file papers in an attempt to stop the re-release of the track as part of Led Zep‘s remaster series, unless California gets a co-writing credit and appropriate payment.

He says Jimmy Page and co heard the song on the road in 1968, and tells Business Week: “It was such a pretty moment, and it would typically come after a big forceful number. They would have seen it in that context. We did quite a few shows with those guys – not to say they might have heard it from the record.”

He says of his plans for legal action: “It would just be nice if the Led Zeppelin guys gave Randy a little nod. That would be lovely.”

The British outfit have been sued in the past over their compositions, with guitarist Page having said he chose to follow a tradition of taking previously-written material and creating “variations.” As a result of legal action they’ve assigned co-writing credits on Whole Lotta Love, Dazed And Confused, The Lemon Song and Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.

Meanwhile, Page says he’s tired of Robert Plant “playing games” over the chances of another reunion.

The vocalist recently slammed home why he didn’t want to go on tour after their 2007 Celebration Day show – but his bandmate is still stung over a comment made last year.

Page tells the New York Times: “I was told last year that Robert said he was doing nothing in 2014, and what do the other two guys think? Well, he knows what the other guys think. Everyone would love to play more concerts. He’s just playing games – and I’m fed up with it, to be honest with you.

“I don’t sing, so I can’t do much about it. It just looks so unlikely, doesn’t it? I definitely want to play live. Because, you know, I’ve still got a twinkle in my eye. I can still play.”

Rollingstone.com have reported that Jimmy Page spent the past few years digging deep into LED ZEPPELIN‘s vault for the group’s upcoming series of deluxe album reissues, but now that the project is done the guitarist is finally ready to focus on his own career. “I play guitar at least once a week,” he says. “But now that the Zeppelin project is finished, I’ll be playing daily for the foreseeable future. I want to get myself back into playing shape. I’m a bit of a perfectionist about these things.”Page hasn’t released an album of original material since the 1998 Page/Plant LP “Walking Into Clarksdale”, and 10 years prior to that he put out Outrider, his one and only solo album. “I’m an unusual character in the music business,” he says. “How many people do you speak with that say they only have one solo album?”

That doesn’t mean he hasn’t continued to write music. “I’ve got lots of material I’ve written on acoustic guitar,” he says. “Lots and lots. And right now I need to get myself up to speed, and that won’t take too long. But I don’t know what musicians I’d play with. I do have material and a passion for it. I need to work towards it, and now I can without all the other side issues going on.”

One of the last times that Jimmy Page performed in public was at the 2009 Rock and Roll hall of Fame induction ceremony, where he jammed with Jeff Beck on a smoking rendition of “Beck’s Bolero” that snuck in a bit of “Immigrant Song.” It was a tantalizing glimpse at a possible Beck/Page co-headlining tour, which would likely do very good business. Earlier this year, Beck told Rolling Stone he’d be interested in such a tour. “If you could talk Jimmy into appearing somewhere,” he said. “He appears at the most unlikely events and then disappears again. He’s a dark horse, there’s no doubt. He’s got a completely private side to him as I have. But we have such a great laugh when we’re together and if he ever comes up for grabs, then it’d make a good package.”Page is slightly less enthused about the idea. “That would be great,” he says. “But I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen. At this moment, it’s safe to say that I haven’t been playing gigs. I’ve been doing this Zeppelin project, but now I intend to start getting to a point where I could play some gigs. But what those gigs are going to be, I don’t know yet. I have ideas of what I want to do, but they’re pretty complex. I would love to play live again. I love playing live. It’s wonderful.”

A Jimmy Page memoir would likely be a huge hit, but don’t expect to see it in stores anytime soon. “I’ve been approached by people about that,” he says. “I said to them, ‘I’ll consider doing a book, but I’d want it to be released posthumously.’ I’ve had quite a lengthy career in music, going back to when I was 13. I went through all of those changing times with the explosion of rock and roll and the undercurrent of blues and how it came into England. I’ve seen documentaries that were really well done, but I lived through it.”

So, why wait until death to release such a book? “That way I can really tell the whole story of what really went on,” he says. “I wouldn’t want people messing around and stopping it with lawyers. No, no, no, no.”

Classic Rock Magazine has issued that LED ZEPPELIN have released a short trailer for their highly-anticipated remaster series. Check it out below.

The first three titles will appear on June 3 – Led Zeppelin, II and III will each come with a companion disc of unreleased material. The video features clips from Good Times Bad Times and Communication Breakdown, taken from the debut album’s companion.

Guitarist Jimmy Page recently said: “The material on the companion discs presents a portal to the time of the recording of Led Zeppelin. It’s a selection of work in progress with rough mixes, backing tracks, alternate versions, and new material recorded at the time.”

A Super Deluxe Box Set will be on sale alongside digital download, deluxe double vinyl, single vinyl, deluxe 2CD and single CD editions.

According to The Pulse Of Radio, several unreleased LED ZEPPELIN studio tapes will be auctioned next month at the Marvels Of Modern Music auction. The tracks are rough, early mixes from the band’s sole double studio set, 1975’s “Physical Graffiti”. The tapes come from the private collection of noted engineer Ron Nevison, who is best known for his groundbreaking work with Pete Townshend on THE WHO‘s 1973 “Quadrophenia” — and who helped design Ronnie Lane‘s Mobile Studio, which was housed in the 26-foot Airstream trailer, which ZEPPELIN used for a portion of the “Physical Graffiti” album.

During a key session for the album, John Paul Jones was late to the studio, leaving Jimmy Page and John Bonham to work out the riff and basic track for “Kashmir” — which was recorded under the working title, “Driving To Kashmir”.

Jimmy Page told The Pulse Of Radio that he knew from the beginning that the magic surrounding LED ZEPPELIN wouldn’t last forever. “I said, basically around the time of the first album, it’s all a race against time, and I think it is. It still is. It still is a race against time and trying to do good work and improve on what you’ve done. It’s more difficult as you get older because you know your days are numbered, really. Within ZEPPELIN, we had this amazing vehicle that we could continue and continue and just come up with amazing things — which fortunately we did continue, and we did come up with amazing stuff. But I still thought it was a race against time. I had no idea how prophetic it would be with the loss of John Bonham.”

John Paul Jones told The Pulse Of Radio that band politics never came into play when the band was working up new material. He said that ZEPPELIN always understood the importance of quality control. “We always made music in the same way — we all know whether something works or not,” he said. “When we wrote music together, y’know, if somebody came up with an idea, if it didn’t work, you didn’t have to be taken to a room quietly to say, ‘Y’know, we can’t use this,’ y’know? Everybody knows, ‘Hey, this is rubbish! Y’know, [laughs] let’s do something else!’ And we’d go on to something that does work, and then everybody knows it works.”

Ron Nevison is also auctioning other rough mixes from his collection, including tracks from OZZY OSBOURNE, BAD COMPANY, ERIC CLAPTON and THE WHO.

Veteran DJ Bob Harris has told how LED ZEPPELIN frontman ROBERT PLANT(pictured with Harris below in 2008) “really saw me through” after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

The broadcaster, dubbed Whispering Bob because of his softly-spoken style, said it was “devastating” when he was diagnosed with the “aggressive” illness.

Appearing on today’s Desert Island Discs on Radio 4, he said: “I was fortunate, very, very fortunate to catch it in time and then it was a question of arresting the growth and then treatment”.

Harris, famous for presenting The Old Grey Whistle Test on TV, told host Kirsty Young that Plant helped when he started to get ill again.

He said: “Every now and again all the readings will go shooting up and that happened to me a couple of years ago when it looked as though it really got serious again and I really needed to talk to somebody about this and I phoned Robert Plant and he offers such unbelievably good advice and he really saw me through that moment and then when we got the all clear again he said ‘fine, OK well I’m not going to be phoning you every single day now’.”